Archive for June 18th, 2010

The SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) will meet in Atlanta this November, and there will be a lot of good sessions. The preliminary program book is now online. Although last year I gave three papers (which was crazy!), this year I will only be chairing a session for one of the groups on whose steering committee I serve. (Why nothing else?Largely because of numerous other lecture commitments this fall—four major academic lectures in September and October.) Among the many things I find inviting are the following (must-hears in bold italics; may require some bi-location!):

Soham Al-Suadi, University of Basel
Placing Christian Origins into the Ordinary – The Hellenistic Meal and the „Birth of Christianity“ (25 min)

Edward Pillar, University of Wale, Lampeter (Trinity St David)
“The Reconciliation of the World”: Exploring how Paul’s Expansive Vision for Israel and the Gentiles Counters and Subverts Pretensions of the Empire (25 min)

Cross, Resurrection, and Diversity in Earliest Christianity
11/21/2010
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Theme: Jesus’ Resurrection in the Pauline Evidence
Papers will be available by November 1 at http://austingrad.edu/sbl.html
Elaine Pagels, Princeton University, Presiding

Todd Still, Baylor University
“Since We Believe that Jesus Died and Rose Again”: The Death and Resurrection of Jesus in 1 Thessalonians (25 min)

E. Johnson, Columbia Theological Seminary, Respondent (15 min)

James Ware, University of Evansville
Paul’s Gospel of the Empty Tomb: The Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 (25 min)

Society of Christian Ethics
11/22/2010
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Theme: What Biblical Scholars Wish Christian Ethicists Would Start/Stop Doing with Scripture
Scholarship exploring the context, meaning, and reception of Scripture makes a foundational contribution to Christian ethics, but in this session, Scripture scholars have been invited to advise ethicists not just about how to read texts but about how to do ethics. Terence Fretheim and Stephen Fowl will offer their manifestos, to which Stanley Hauerwas will respond. Their ensuing dialogue will invite additional contributions from those attending.